Watch any old black and white movie and you will see some guy walk into his local bank, where he knows the bank manager by his first name, and he will ask for a loan. The bank manager may ask him what it is for, or how much he needs, and then he will hand over a stack of cash. It’s that easy! Well, in today’s world, it is not that easy. In fact, you don’t know the name of your bank manager, and he will not be handing you a stack of anything but application forms. That is one reason why most people will not get a personal loan at a bank.

Before the housing bubble burst, people could easily get a personal loan at a bank in the form of a home equity loan. As long as they owned their home and it was valued at more than the amount of the mortgage, they were usually allowed to borrow that amount of money.  The assumption was always that housing prices would jump every year, so no one could get hurt. Well, the housing prices dropped, many people were found to be upside down in their mortgage, and the banks lost a lot of money.
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